Tax inefficiency is a joke...but...but it's historically accurate, right?

[DeSoto]

No idea what the original devs were trying to do here, but the way taxes are handled is beyond abysmal. I'm owning 12 cities, all nicely clustered together, no far stretches of foreign territory between them. They all got a prosperity level of average to rich at the moment. Together that amounts to slightly above 100k. But my tax inefficiency is close to 60%, which reduces that number by 60k already. The wages on the other hand are of course unaffected, so that currently I'm barely breaking even. Mind you my personal party is very small and only costs around 2k, with a large army I'd probably loose around 10-15k per week atm. In an ideal scenario, the income will net you a positive, but only if you keep constant peace. As soon as your villages get looted it all goes deep into the red again. And let's be real here, you're almost always at war with somebody.

12 freaking cities! All my lords own at least a castle, but apparently the mod doesn't want you to actually feel like an emperor. What's the point of owning 3 fiefs and giving the rest away, have you guys looked at the size of the map? 12 cities are still only a small portion of it. If I had remote fiefs that were far away I'd be totally fine with loosing 50% of the income of that particular fief, but having my capital run at 40% efficiency while at peace is laughable and a slap in the face by the devs. I know that the engine doesn't allow for a distance based tax calculation, but why use these exaggerated numbers then? Let me guess, to artificially drag the game out even more balance?
And please don't point me towards manors, they require large investements to get going, money that you have trouble generating as a ruler in the first place. And if you collect the tax in denars that doesn't ammount to much either. And I'm sure not going around peddling manor wares to towns, I'm a monarch for crying out loud. Manors are just another way to waste your time with micromanagement that should be spend campaigning. It's ridiculous that you have a far easier time to make money as a freelancer compared to being a ruler of a sprawling empire.

You invested time and effort trying to create a believeable world and then you piss it all away by implementing nonsensical handicaps and completely broken sieges. Which I adresssed for years now and that never got fixed > attacking forces don't use ranged weapons at all so that I can literally defend with a couple hundred men against a 3-4k force. Also many siege scenes are messed up. But that's another topic.

So after I vented myself, I guess I'm asking where I can find that number in order to adjust it to a reasonable and much more realistic figure.

 

[Laizenbh]

I dont really think the byzantine emperor "owned" more than just constantinople, or other mighty kings owned more than 2 or 3 castles, it was impossible o oversee many things in a age ppl depended so much on paper and other ppl. Grant land and expect tribute, thats how it works.

 

[DeSoto]

Problem is, there is no tribute system in this game. Anything you give away is gone and you get nothing in return. You can call them to a campaign, but that's the core mechanic of the game and isn't something that should be considered tribute. And some of them just flat out ignore you anyway, even with good relations. There is already a diminishing sense of accomplishment the further your game progresses, now you want me to siege a couple hundred fiefs only to hand them out for free? So I basically become a servant of my subordinates? Each lord would end up owning way more land than I do, that's just silly (cause he should have the same problems then) and the polar opposite of fun.

A sandbox game should give you several paths that are all viable and fun to play at the same time. Look at Europa Universalis 4, a game several magnitudes more complex, but you can have a satisfying playthrough with vastly different approaches. Compare this to M&B and this mod in particular, where the sole focus is on conquest and then you'll realize that shoehorning the player into the "right" way to play the game sucks all the fun out of the mid- to endgame. Why does hardly any player finish a playthrough? Cause it's pure tedium after you reach a critical mass and the *only* thing that could motivate you to keep going is the fact that you create this giant empire for yourself. And if I really rely on my AI lords as you recommend, then I might as well call it quits, cause they are incompetent beyond belief. Make one of your lords marshall right from the beginning and see how well that goes. The human player is the sole reason why stuff works out, you should be able to reap the majority of benefits.

If I want to experience an exact and absolut faithful retelling of a certain period, I might as well read a book about it. It's a game, you level up, you can't die, you can reload whenever you make a mistake, you repel sieges with impossible odds and so on...but the kingdom management is supposed to be 100% realistic? Which it could never be anyway considering how limited Warband is. The devs just had this idea that was way too big for a framework like this so they tried to twist and bend the game around it. Which led to the state of the mod we have now.

And don't worry, I'll not be going on about this forever. I'm just laying it all out and hope that by some miracle the development on this mod will resume (preferably by people with new ideas). The siege fix alone would make it 100 times more enjoyable to play.